Author

Abstract

Psychological treatments of transsexualism and sex gender Dysphoria syndroms. Recent data. There are generally two types of patients requesting sex change operations: one type is the classical but rare transsexual, the others belong to the larger more vague group of sex gender Dysphoria. These syndroms have been felt to be unresponsive to psychotherapy. We review here some recent attempts of psychological treatments which claim to improve satisfaction with biological sex gender identity and result in renonciation of the request of sex reassignment surgery (S.R.S.). These psychotherapies use various methods: Behavior therapy, psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy, religious exorcism and conversion. The reports reviewed suggest that sex gender identity may be more malleable than previously thought in transsexual syndrom, at least in relatively youthful subjects. Cases of recent onset of the syndrom which result from a crisis cases underline the necessity for careful evaluation and attempted psychological treatment before undertaking irreversible surgical procedures.